The present invention relates to adding of fiber strand segments of varied colors, textures or other characteristics into a composite strand of fibers such as used in the manufacture of textile yarn to make fabrics having varying colors, textures or other characteristics distributed throughout their extent, and more particularly the present invention relates to producing such strands having the colors, textures or other characteristics distributed in a truly random manner without repeats in the ultimate
Multi-colored, multi-textured and otherwise multi-charactered woven or knitted textile fabrics have been manufactured for years in various ways and have become popular in carpets, garments, draperies and other products. In recent years there has been a growing demand for fabrics having colors, textures or other characteristics in a truly random distribution, without any predictable repeat in the finished fabric. Repeats are difficult to avoid with certainty because even a long and complicated pattern that is difficult to discern in a length of yarn is compacted into what may be a detectible repeat when the yarn is knit or woven into fabric.
Prior attempts to obtain true random distribution have evolved into complicated and expensive electronic control systems for varying the addition of components to fiber strands, such as shown in Cureton U.S. Pat. No. 3,449,899, issued June 17, 1969, for Variable Count and Slubbing Apparatus and Method. Other examples of adding segments of fibers to a fiber strand, in each case a yarn, with only a modicum of elimination of patterning and requiring special apparatus are disclosed in Joy U.S. Pat. No. 3,310,933, issued Mar. 28, 1967, which discloses a timer controlled cutter and air jet to insert slubs into a yarn, and Breen U.S. Pat. No. 2,997,837, issued Aug. 29, 1961, which discloses imparting a cranking motion to a yarn to pick up slubs discharged from a reservoir. None of these prior art examples or any other known prior art provides unpredictable random distribution of fiber strand segments in a base strand in a simple and inexpensive manner as does the present invention.